Monthly Archives May 2016

Trumpublican trademarked by Trump campaign, later abandoned. Story. Trademark record.

More detailed analysis on percentage depletion.

Urban dictionary.

History of tax breaks.

More details on tax breaks — mainly corporate, assuming tax breaks for alternative energy, and some personal. Does not include the largest individual tax breaks.

As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops. 

Difference between national parks and national monuments:

The primary difference lies in the reason for preserving the land: National parks are protected due to their scenic, inspirational, education, and recreational value. National monuments have objects of historical, cultural, and/or scientific interest, so their content is quite varied.

Oil depletion allowance, is not what I thought it was.

Power, Persuasion and Attractiveness

Money spent on Indian affairs about 2.8 Bn.

Indian boarding schools  particularly Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Opposition to national monument

Bill on Monument in Maine goes to LePage’s desk

Trump/Clinton Persuasion techniques

Trump policy details

So what do you do if you want to persuade voters but you don’t want to give policy details that are nothing but targets for critics? A trained persuader would create a situation in which everyone can see whatever they want to see. Trump literally takes both sides of the issues whenever he can. As a candidate, he’s a human Rorschach test. I might see in Trump a skilled persuader who always makes aggressive opening offers, and you might see a future dictator. We are looking at the same set of facts but we are primed by our experiences to interpret them differently. I study persuasion in all its forms and perhaps you watch the History Channel too much. Trump’s persuasion strategy depends on a growing number of voters finding something they like about him and fewer people reflexively making History Channel analogies. So far, it seems to be working. You’ll see Trump’s strategy fully-flowered over the summer. Watch for how many different reasons people offer for why they support him. That’s your tell.

Younger Dryas Period

Putin taking back royalty

Atlantic article on “Who are Trump’s supporter?”

Selling encyclopedias

Those of you who regularly participate in the Beyond Labels group have heard me talk about my disappointment with the opportunity for students who don’t appear to be destined for college to take vocational courses to build real-world skills that our economy needs desperately (and values accordingly).

The courses exist, but my concern is that the “system” (parents, educators, peers, the community) tends to stigmatize the courses and their attendees. I think that’s wrong and is doing a disservice to a large segment of our students.

Here’s an article from the NY Times on the theme (sort of). This post is mostly intended as an “envelope” for the Times article.

This article in the NY Times deserves reading on a desktop — or maybe a tablet if there’s a way to hover over the bubbles to see what’s what.

In the upper right hand corner — the richest people and the best educational outcomes — are dominantly towns in Western Massachusetts — Concord, Carlyle, Acton, and so on.

There’s a search box, so you can see what schools in this region look like relative to the country as a whole.

The breakdown by race is interesting and prompts questions. Is the gap due to some institutional bias? Is it due to differences in IQ? And if so, are the differences due to environment, or are there genetic differences?

Lots of controversy on the IQ issue, summarized here.